Forty-five minutes earlier
I cross the yard, checking instinctively for canine-like footprints in the snow, but the blanketing is pristine. Apparently, the old wolf didn’t visit us last night. Reports of attacks keep surfacing whenever I talk to someone in town, but at least, they haven’t been on humans anymore, mostly livestock and a few unfortunate household pets.
That’s good news. The bad news is that last night it snowed pretty heavily, and now I’ll have to clear a path out before I can drive down the driveway. I drop my laptop bag into the car—I smuggled it out of the house while Wendy wasn’t watching—and go to the shed to fetch the snowblower. Twenty minutes later, I’ve carved a passage large enough for the Jeep. Only now, I’m sweaty, tired, and if I don’t hurry, I’m also going to
